


Slices of an Apostate's Life

by KivaEmber



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24239773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KivaEmber/pseuds/KivaEmber
Summary: Oneshot collection of mage&male!Hawke at various points in DA2 (potentially DA:I too).
Relationships: Fenris/Hawke (Dragon Age), Fenris/Male Hawke
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	1. Act III: Party Banter - Hawke+Varric+Isabela+Fenris

“Well,” Hawke said cheerily, knee deep in dragon entrails and coated head to toe with blood, “I didn’t expect _that_ to happen!” 

Fenris grunted, carefully peeling off a still dripping chunk of _flesh_ from his torso, maintaining very unimpressed eye contact with the increasingly sheepish looking Hawke as he did so. Pinched gingerly between forefinger and thumb, Fenris held out the gory piece of _dragon meat_ from his person - and dropped it, where it hit the wet ground beneath his feet with a loud _splat._

“Hawke,” Fenris said, then stopped, because there were no words that could adequately convey how _disgusted_ and _irritated_ he was right now. He could feel it in his hair - what exactly he could feel, he was hoping was just blood, but considering how that dragon had straight up _imploded_ from Hawke’s 'improved' Walking Bomb spell…

“My, my, you’re both so _drippy_ ,” Isabela drawled, materialising from the shadows without a single speck of red on her. Fenris envied her from the very bottom of his soul, “Someone got a bit overexcited, hm?”

“I might have fed a _bit_ too much _omph_ into my spell, yes,” Hawke admitted, slowly scanning his surroundings, “Hey, where’s Varric? Did I accidentally drown him under _dragon de foie gras_?”

“Your Orlesian is terrible. I’m up here.” 

As one, the trio pivoted and looked up. The high ledge above jutted out from the crumbling stairs as a long eroded, half-collapsed balcony, and there the dwarf lurked, out of ‘splash range’. Varric had the biggest shite-eating grin on his face, hands on hips as he looked down at the mess the rest of them were standing in. 

“You know, Hawke, normally I have to make up all kinds of crazy shit to give you a humanising flaw or two,” Varric drawled, “But as always, you somehow outcrazy _my_ bullshit.”

“True, I’m wearing about a third of the dragon’s guts right now,” Hawke said, beginning the futile task of brushing himself down, “Fenris the other third-”

“ _Hawke,_ ” Fenris said again, strained. 

“-and the final third on the floor,” Hawke hurried along, “But still, I _blew up a dragon._ How many can claim _that?_ ”

“It was a _small_ dragon,” Isabela corrected. 

“No bigger than a deer,” Fenris agreed. 

“And you cruelly blew it up,” Varric _tsk’d_. 

“I can’t please any of you,” Hawke mock-griped. 

“What will please me is a quick dip in the sea to get this off,” Fenris muttered, shaking his arms pointedly. Isabela quickly hopped away from him to avoid the blood splatter, “Lest some templars think we’re _blood mages_ and attempt to decapitate us.” 

“Hah! Can you imagine?” Isabela laughed, “You telling them ‘no, no, this is _dragon blood_ , not _virgin blood_ ’! They wouldn’t believe it.”

Hawke’s expression gained that mischievous edge to it that never boded well, “We do look like a pair of escaped cultists, don’t we?” 

“Not helped by broody’s outfit,” Varric muttered. 

“I’m leaving,” Fenris said, and proceeded to do just so. Though the solemn dramatics of it were ruined by the fact he had to awkwardly wade through the viscera coating the floor, something which felt abso-fucking-lutely disgusting squishing between his toes. It had the same consistency as too-warm mud, sticky and lumpy and making shivers of disgust crawl right up his spine.

 _I hate mages,_ Fenris thought, with supreme exasperation.

* * *

“I hate mages,” Fenris said with supreme disgust. 

Hawke sighed somewhere to his left, a worn, strained sound like it had been wrung out from the very bottom of his lungs, “Yeah. Same.” 

“Says the mage,” Isabela pointed out absently, too occupied in shaking out the pockets of one of their ambushers. 

They had been a group of three mages with a handful of enthralled mercenaries, gaunt-faced and greedy eyed as they attempted to murder Hawke for no reason other than daring to exist. Fenris didn’t know, he didn’t particularly care for the deranged logic of these blood mages. All he cared about was introducing them to the sharp end of his blade before they could so much as touch a hair on Hawke’s head. 

They were within the shadows of Kirkwall’s walls too. Despicable. They were growing bolder by the day, Kirkwall a cauldron of scalding water threatening to boil over and flood its surroundings. Fenris felt an unease every time he thought about it, about what the future may hold, and what this might mean for them - and for Hawke.

“Self-loathing is a thing,” Hawke joked, but there was an edge to his voice that had Fenris turning to him with a frown. 

“You? Self-loathe?” Varric scoffed, breaking the awkward moment before it sunk its claws in, patting Hawke’s leg with the back of his hand, “Your ego’s too big for that.”

Hawke’s thin smile turned into his usual, half-smug grin. 

“You calling me big-headed, Varric?” Hawke swayed enough to bump Varric’s shoulder with his leg, “Arrogant? Conceited? _Bumptious_?” 

“Well, that’s a new word,” Varric strode away from the mage, skirting around the splayed corpses of their attackers with a casual sort of caution, “Does that mean ‘an arrogant country bumpkin’? If so, then yes.” 

Hawke laughed, loud and boisterous, and it was like that short moment of exhausted resignation had never been there. 

Fenris turned away from him, content to leave it at that. He knew Hawke drew his sarcasm and wit around him like a shield, and trying to expose a vulnerable point was an effort in irritating futility, if Hawke felt like being difficult - which was always. The man never made things easy. 

( _again, the memory of that night they shared less than three years ago flashed across his mind. He firmly pushed it away. This wasn’t the time to dwell on it, if ever)_

“Ugh, poor as dirt,” Isabela declared, standing up and throwing her hands up into the air, “Not even a single silver coin! No wonder they looked half-starved.”

“Maybe that’s why they attacked us,” Hawke said hopefully, “A simple mugging! And not because of the whole, ‘the Champion of Kirkwall is a sellout mage who’s shagging Meredith and so is a traitor to all magekind’ thing.”

Fenris choked at that, “ _What._ ”

“Oh? Haven’t you heard?” Hawke’s grin turned wolfish, and Fenris immediately regretted asking, “Well, it starts like this: as I am _not_ currently chained in the Circle _despite_ being strongly suspected of being an apostate-”

“You walk around Hightown with a mage staff and fight criminals at night with flashy magic,” Varric cut in dryly, “There’s no ‘ _strongly suspected’_ about it.” 

Hawke ignored him, “-I _must_ be in Meredith’s pocket in some way to be granted this _luxury._ Never mind I had to fight the Arishok in _single combat_ to earn that privilege. Meredith never bloody shuts up about it.” 

“Oh, so you _do_ chat with her, then,” Isabela teased, “That might be feeding those rumours a little.” 

“Chat?” Hawke wrinkled his nose, “Yeah, sure, let’s call whatever she does _chatting._ Thinly veiled threats of dragging me into the Circle if I place so much as my smallest toe out of line doesn’t fill me with warm, friendly feelings towards her.”

“Don’t need warm, friendly feelings to shag someone,” Isabela said knowingly. 

Hawke lifted his gaze to the heavens and said, “She’s the wrong type of crazy for me.” 

Fenris tried not to twitch when Varric and Isabela both looked directly at him, sporting equal expressions of _‘ah, so it’s only that kind of crazy you like then’_ (it was a very particular expression). 

“Anyway, enough about that,” Hawke said quickly, “Let’s get going before more blood mages leap out of the bushes, frothing madly at the mouth.” 

“You didn’t wash the blood off thoroughly enough,” Varric said knowingly as they resumed their trek back to Kirkwall, “They can probably smell you from a mile off and it's drawing them in, like moths to a flame...”

“Ugh, Varric, please.” 

“They’re welcome to follow me to my mansion,” Fenris said flatly, “I need fresh corpses to decorate my entrance hall.” 

Varric just gave him a tired look. Fenris smiled thinly back at him. 

“Does that even work to keep the tax collectors away?” Hawke asked curiously, “Because if so, maybe I should-”

“You want Aveline to break down your door for scaring the Hightown folk?” Varric cut him off. 

“...fair point.”


	2. Act III: Uneasy - Hawke+Anders

Sometimes Hawke wished he’d never been born a mage. 

They were random thoughts, fleeting, not really sincere. If he wasn’t a mage, he wouldn’t be able to do that neat party trick with the wine corks, or make his bed with only a lazy flick of his hand, or light candles with a snap of his fingers. Important yet trivial parlour tricks that really made the whole persecution and angry suspicion worth it!

Hah. 

In all seriousness, though, he _did_ entertain the thought from time to time. Would he have been like Carver? Bitter towards Bethany for sharing Father’s gift? Or would he have cast a different shadow for his brother to squat in? Would things be the same, just in different ways? Or would Hawke be dead in a ditch by now, dogpiled as he was by blood mages nowadays? Swords and skill were good against squishy mages, but the only good counter to blood magic was _magic_ \- and Hawke didn’t always have his apostate friends with him when he got jumped. 

_Gotta admit though, it’d be nice to live without the baggage magic brings with it for a week or something,_ Hawke mused to himself, drawing himself out of his thoughts to refocus on his current situation, which was: politely trapped in conversation with Anders in his clinic because he foolishly tripped into another sit-through of _‘The Mages’ Manifesto’._

Maker. Hawke was really _sick_ of that manifesto. 

_It makes me want to persecute my fellow mages out of spite,_ Hawke thought wryly.

“-these stringent measures were introduced because of _human_ fear,” Anders was saying, strolling up and down between a pair of empty cots. He always paced when at his most agitated, his words rushed between short breaths, “And because any mages’s input into their ‘protection’ is always regarded with _open suspicion_ , as if any protest could be born only from malicious reasons-”

“Anders,” Hawke interrupted delicately, feeling a headache creep over him, “I know. You’ve said _many_ times before.”

Anders stuttered to a halt, blinking like he only just realised Hawke was an actual living, breathing person, and not just some convenient soundboard to rant at, “What- oh, yes, of course.”

There was an awkward pause, filled with the same sort of tension that lingered around Varric disabling a rigged barrel bomb in a confined room. That is to say, Anders wrung his hands together, breathing in that slow, short way of his that said he was working _very hard_ to Not Glow and blow up the nearest person-shaped object. An increasingly difficult feat nowadays, by Anders’ own admission. 

It made Hawke uneasy, but he didn’t like dwelling on _uneasy_ so promptly stuffed the feeling down to be forgotten about. 

“C’mon,” Hawke said, boldly breaking the awkward silence, “You’ve been cooped up down here too long. Let’s go to the Hanged Man and get robbed blind by Isabela’s rigged card games again.”

“Implying I have _anything_ to be robbed of,” Anders muttered, but his breathing eased, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips, “It has been a while since I’ve visited Lowtown…”

“She can always steal your smallclothes again,” Hawke quipped, gesturing broadly, “I have to wonder what she does with all of those, actually. Do you think she-?”

Anders’s pulled a face, “Don’t. Give me that mental image.” 

“I was going to say ‘launders them and gives them to charity’,” Hawke finished innocently, “Why, what did you think I was going to say, Anders? Something _dirty_?” 

“You’re impossible!” Anders sighed with a bit too much fondness.

Hawke didn’t dwell on that either. He had enough romantic drama juggling Fenris’s porcupine approach to relationships as it was. So, he ignored it. Like he did with too many things nowadays. 

“That’s me, the impossible, amazing - and devilishly handsome - Champion of Kirkwall,” Hawke said obnoxiously, pushing off the crate he’d been leaning against and striding for the clinic’s exit, “A Champion’s who’s craving cheap, shitty ale from the Hanged Man. C’mon, already.”

“Fine, fine,” Anders dragged his feet for only two steps before he quickened his stride to eagerly follow.

This time of day… Isabela and Varric would definitely be vegetating at the tavern. Those two were always good at derailing Anders’s erratic mage rants and keeping him grounded firmly in reality. The more grounded and relaxed Anders was, the less likely _Justice_ would flare up and attack templars in broad daylight, a headache Hawke really didn’t want to nurse right now. 

_You could just hand him over to the templars,_ a very, very, very quiet voice in the back of his head muttered, a voice Hawke irritably dubbed ‘common sense’, _he’s growing more dangerous, and unpredictable._

Hawke ignored it, though. He didn’t want to suffer the dramatics of Anders feeling betrayed by him handing him over to the templars - they’d kill him outright, or make him Tranquil, and Hawke… didn’t want that on his hands. He wanted to trust Anders, he wanted to really believe in him and hope everything will work out. After all, Anders hadn’t lost control yet, despite Kirkwall being the cradle of every injustice in the world. So, Hawke can… wait and see, right?

Right, of course he can. 

All they had to do, as impossible as it felt, was keep their heads down and wait for this mage vs templar bullshit to blow over. The Grand Cleric will pick a side, or Meredith might strangle Orsino with her bare hands, or she might have an ‘accident’, and everything will calm back down with one side’s leader effectively neutralised.

Hawke really wanted to believe that, because the alternative…

Well, let’s not think about that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anders was always an interesting character to me. like, first time i played through dragon age 2, i felt so betrayed by his actions near the end even though i suspected something was up with him as Act 3 progressed. So, I like to think that by Act 3, Hawke was kinda feeling uneasy and unsure about Anders' erratic behaviour, but was willing to place his trust in him because, hey, six years of friendship (or rivalship heh) is hard to just ignore. Anders kept a lid on it for this long, so he can handle himself just fine, right?
> 
> so tl;dr anders and hawke have a very complicated friendship and it's. my jam. i love it.

**Author's Note:**

> man this old fandom love of mine randomly gut-punched me so here we go, random oneshot collections. got any requests/prompts or whatever dont hesitate to comment. 
> 
> the overarching pairing is fenris/hawke btw and Hawke is default male!hawke, beard and all
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
